ns, and that the administrative duties should be entrusted to
a council consisting of Shibata Katsuiye, Niwa Nagahide, Ikeda
Nobuteru, and Hideyoshi, each taking it in turn to discharge these
functions and each residing for that purpose in Kyoto three months
during the year. An income of one hundred thousand koku in the
province of Omi was assigned to Samboshi pending the attainment of
his majority, when he should be placed in possession of much larger
estates, which were to be entrusted in the meanwhile to the keeping
of one of the four barons mentioned above. Nobukatsu received the
province of Owari, and Nobutaka that of Mino, the remainder of
Nobunaga's dominions being apportioned to his generals, with the
exception of Hideyoshi, to whom were assigned the provinces recently
overrun by him in the midlands--Tajima, Harima, Inaba, and Tamba.

Such an arrangement had no elements of stability. The four
councillors could not possibly be expected to work in harmony, and it
was certain that Katsuiye, Sakuma Morimasa, and Takigawa Kazumasu
would lose no opportunity of quarrelling with Hideyoshi. Indeed, that
result was averted solely by Hideyoshi's tact and long suffering, for
when, a few days later, the barons again met at Kiyosu for the
purpose of discussing territorial questions, every possible effort
was made to find a pretext for killing him. But Hideyoshi's
astuteness and patience led him successfully through this maze of
intrigues and complications. He even went so far as to hand over his
castle of Nagahama to Katsuiye, and to endure insults which in
ordinary circumstances must have been resented with the sword.
Tradition describes a grand memorial ceremony organized in Kyoto by
Hideyoshi in honour of Nobunaga, and, on that occasion, incidents are
said to have occurred which bear the impress of romance. It is, at
all events, certain that the immediate issue of this dangerous time
was a large increase of Hideyoshi's authority, and his nomination by
the Court to the second grade of the fourth rank as well as to the
position of major-general. Moreover, the three barons who had been
appointed with Hideyoshi to administer affairs in Kyoto in turn, saw
that Hideyoshi's power was too great to permit the peaceful working
of such a programme. They therefore abandoned their functions, and
Hideyoshi remained in sole charge of the Imperial Court and of the
administration in the capital.

DEATH OF SHIBATA KATSUIYE

It has been